Just because.

You'll note the Monkey Song breaks down the Etsy Search function in a way we can all understand.

Random dog pictures

Baxter deciding that Kinley doesn't suck. That took a good four or five days.

Baxter's pound pic.

Kinley home for three days.


Kinley's pound pic. Now you see why, huh?



Baxter and Kinley a few days after Baxter stopped ignoring him. Kinley is now bigger then Baxter.




Lida

Kinley



Kinley

Kinley the day we got him. Six months. After three baths. Notice how he's down on his pasterns? (pancake feet) One of the worst cases I've seen. Now his feet are nice and tight.

Baxter at three months.



Yes, he has always been this serious. That was when we had grass.




Death by Basset. Baxter (no dogs were harmed)




Lida's pound picture, she was "Urgent number 3" she was pulled the day she was to be gassed, minutes before, really.


Lida when she arrived.

Who you help support with your purchase.

Lida's Petfinder ad.

I wanted to give you an idea of how flexible this dog is. Her second day she slipped UNDER the fence through a hole roughly the size of a piece of paper. Now the gate is bungeed shut because Kinley can open the latch.

Every dog has a story and I'm still working on them. Almost done with Kinley's. Kinley is a challenging dog, but well worth the effort. I made the right decision not adopting him out. He'll be two sometime this month and he has been particularly challenging every now and again over the last couple weeks.

It's good to see these pictures and know you can make a very tangible difference without really doing very much and benefiting greatly in the end.

Enough of that, lets have fun.

Ok, dear readers, shall we get back to better things? I'm gonna go pop a bottle of Advil and make something nice. Thanks for hanging in there.

It's a lovely day outside, it's it's lovely for you, that's good too.

A room full of Nellies.

You know this was TWO years ago. I happen to agree with FancyPants in regard to he manned up and it's bridge water. *waves at Fancy*

I'm stating this because I keep seeing this getting linked to as a 'See how AF is SATAN!" point is while I love the traffic, really,  not only is not not how I feel anymore (in most regard) but it is't fair to Tony.

We all fuck up. He fucked up on a GRAND scale. And while AF and it's forums in particular, aren't for me, I'm not comfortable being used out of context to show someone in a negative light. While it was enough to boggle my socks, it hasn't happened again that I know of.

Goat

p.s. Yes, I really did get death threats I still have them in 'comments' , but I'm sure those  people are much saner now as well. Right?

Yes, he really did all those things. Yes, he's apologized. As for my being credible, well, that's all a point of perspective, isn't it?

From the fine EB folks

This is from the fine ladies at Etsybitch.blogspot.com. They've written a fine article and I hope they don't mind me riding on thier coat tails to bring this to your attention.


Etsy doesn't allow returns

One of the 'clarifications' in the changed Dos and Don'ts was regarding cancelled transactions:
The seller may cancel an invalid or void transaction, as defined by these circumstances:-The buyer did not pay (see Non-payment) at the time the transaction was created, according to the transaction agreement or according to the terms in the seller's Shop Policies.-Both the buyer and seller agree to cancel the transaction prior to shipment. If the buyer has already paid, the seller has refunded buyer (price paid for item plus shipping).-The seller has refused service to the buyer (see Refusing service).

If the buyer hasalready paid, the seller has refunded the buyer (price paid for item plus shipping).-The buyer paid for the item(s). Although the seller shipped the item(s), the buyer did not receive the item(s). The seller has refunded the buyer (price paid for item at minimum).But sellers wonder, what about when the sale is refunded because the item was returned? As far as Etsy cares, it was a sale, so they keep their fees... Even if you don't get paid!

Stellaloella says:
The DOs & DON'Ts of Etsy define transactions as such: "A transaction is created when a buyer completes Etsy's checkout process. [...] An Etsy transaction is completed when the buyer pays and the seller ships the item."Canceling a transaction is linked to refunding a seller their listing and transaction fees. In the case that the buyer wishes to return the item and the seller agrees to a refund, that is still a valid, completed transaction for which Etsy requires fees to be paid by the seller. Etsy has provided a completed transaction service to the seller.

If the seller chooses to accept a return and possibly refund the buyer, that does not negate that Etsy has provided an agreed-upon service for which we should be paid. This was not clearly outlined in our policies in the past, and some sellers took advantage of the opportunity to cancel valid, completed transactions for the purpose of avoiding Etsy's fees or feedback from buyers.

Yep, it's the sellers' fault. Offering refunds on returns like good business people...expecting a completed sale to be the point of a listing. Paypal may do it, but they're suckers!Don't you all realize that the point of listing on Etsy is to pay them!? All those poor admin working all day and you guys want to take away their fees for doing nothing! shame on you.On a nonsarcastic note, if the seller doesn't get paid, Etsy shouldn't either.

They already received the listing fee for the interaction with the buyer, but if the seller isn't paid for the item (including refunds on returns) then Etsy shouldn't get the percentage cut of the sale price. But then again, Etsy likes to take money that isn't theirs, like the fee for sale prices on weekend deals.

By the way, kind of nice of Etsy to put this policy into play without notifying their members. Hands up for everyone who's gotten an email about the new Dos and Don'ts...yeah, it doesn't matter that I can't see you, I know there aren't any hands up.

Camping and bears. A lot of bears.

Very Big Bag.

Boy in Hammock.

I love my E.

Imagine Big Black Bear head poking up right at the edge. About twenty feet away.

Campsite number two. No very unhappy children.

Bear Patrol.

See where Kinley is gazing off? He'd just come back from disappearing after the deer, waaaaay back there.

We just got back from Big Meadows. We saw a LOT of bears. The first night we stayed in A loop in our fav place and a mother and two cubs came walking along the end of the site.

This is when I learned that my city dog (Baxter) and my rural stray (Kinley) truly are from two different worlds. Kinley, apparently knows what bears are and is of the firm belief, as am I, that they need to stay a respectable distance away.

He was the one that alerted me to the bears. In fact, he bounded out of the car (we were tucking in) and made these low growling noises I'd not hear before. This told me it was serious.

Then he ran forward several feet and put on quite the show. Not the barking to scare the hikers who are idiots and walked through our site, this was a totally different sort of thing. The bears stopped, looked at Kinley, he looked at them.

Baxter stayed in the car sleeping. Either because he has no idea what a bear is (he learned later) or because he hopes Kinley will perhaps be eaten by one.

I called Kinley back and he reluctantly came after I got Gabriel in the car. The bears kept going. A stupid dog would have run up to the bears or made a commotion. He is not a stupid dog. I was a little short of breath. I'm not used to half domesticated bears, I'm used to Alaska bears.

The next morning as we were waking up I went to tether the dogs and Kinley saw a group of deer. Yep, you guessed it.

He was off and it was both beautiful and panic inducing. See, Kinley is a runner and a very competitive one. He didn't want to catch the deer, he never made a sound. He wanted to race the deer.

You can see in the pic with both of them the back is wide open so you could see all this unfolding. he was leaping with the deer and then *poof* they were all gone.

As in ALL gone. I blew my ER whistle, waited....and he came bounding back. it was like, a movie moment, I tell you. he was all 'Did you SEE what I did?!" and I was all "OMG you came back!!"

Baxter is just looking at Kinley like "Whatever."

So....we have breakfast and for some reason, even though the campground is almost empty a family with two very unhappy small children move next to us.

Very, unhappy small children.

So we moved over to E loop and scored 187. This was easy as we had no tent. Although the small children were audibly miserable enough I would have moved a brick and mortar condo need be.

We spent the day hiking and eating .

It's very tiring with two dogs because you pretty much have to keep going through out the day. Went to the lodge, played checkers.

Next morning I'm making coffee and I hear Kinley make the 'bear noise'. I can’t see anything. The E loop is on the edge of a drop off to the Appalachian Trail, you can see it in the pics here.

I'm looking, Baxter is looking, I go down a few feet, no bear. Kinley is still making the bear noise. I turn around, pour my coffee, turn back and there is this HUGE black bear sticking it's head up right over the edge.

To see what he could see.

Kinley and Baxter and now getting serious, I'm yelling at Gabriel to stay in the car and here is this bear.

Bear decides the dogs are a PIA and moves along. Now according to the rangers the bears are no big deal you just make noise and they go away. But I was happy to have my boys.

Kinley remained very serious the rest of the day. You can see in one of the pics where he is basically on bear look out.

The E stuff, well, I found this tri folds martial arts mat we had and used that. it was fantastic as it went all the way under the steering wheel. used the cushions to level it.

The bag, the BAG, I love this bag. I have never loved a bag before. It's HUGE. It has pockets, its flannel lined and has a big top cushy extra part you can drawstring to make a mummy type hood and another drawstring along the top. Zippers one BOTH sides and it's warm. It made me HAPPY.

It's the Teton Mammoth bag. Supposed to sleep two adult and a kid, we are one fat adult and a big nine year old and had plenty of room. It was a dreamy bag.

The secret to putting it back in is to fold in lengthwise and the cram the bottom end in first. Don't even bother trying to roll this sucker up. I am so happy with this damn bag.

Mouse

Remember Our Lady of the Limbs? Well, here Mouse Alive I can't say it on the listings, but these are actually mug shots. Seems there was an incident with a stripper pole and an inability to grasp said pole leading to a major meltdown and thrown tables and chairs.